Bishnu (Gaumaya Gurung) is a writer in her bones, which explains why we see her continuously grappling with the world. While those around Bishnu go through life with less fuss, we see her recording nearly all experiences from outside, trying to gauge the subtext of each and every conversation, the pauses, closely examining one’s train of thought, questioning it, and trying to understand why one bit leads to the other. An insider-outsider in her village in Sikkim, having returned after quitting a copywriting job in Delhi, she sees the town with a new set of eyes.Tribeny Rai’s Shape of Momo takes the idea of a ‘homecoming film’ – where characters are usually forced to visit home and resolve their friction with the place – and flips it.With Bishnu, it is a homecoming, alright. But the place doesn’t carry any real trauma for her; if anything, she remembers growing up loved. However, after experiencing life in a cosmopolitan culture, she’s forced to stop romanticising her town and sees it for what it is. Often, home becomes a prison, and the nostalgia becomes an extension of the Stockholm Syndrome it perpetuates.A still from Tribeny Rai’s Shape of Momo, 2026.Rai has described the film as autobiographical in many post-screening chats and interviews. A detail that is only reinforced by the fact that she cast her own mother (Pashupati Rai) and grandmother (Bhanu Maya Rai) as Bishnu’s mother and grandmother, respectively.It’s an unusual household for the village, where the four occupants are Bishnu, her mother, grandmother and pregnant elder sister, Junu (Shyama Shree Sherpa), visiting them. Coming from relative privilege – Bishnu’s parents own orchards, her uncle lives in Dubai, and yet there’s a discernable male absence.Four women live as a family and so innate is the conditioning in Bishnu’s mother that whether it’s a stranger asking for water or a male domestic help coming to work, when her young daughter is home, her first instinct is to cover her up with a blanket.This blatant bias infuriates Bishnu, who has tasted basic dignity, agency and a relative version of equality in the city. It makes her stubborn, even ruthless, to an extent. When their tenants are behind on rent and her mother agrees for a reduced one-time payment, Bishnu becomes cold and rude. “Tell me on video how much you’re paying right now, and by when will you pay the rest of the amount,” she rebukes the tenant, only to be answered back to by an indignant son.Also read: Small Town Girls, an Intimate Portrait: ‘A More Sophisticated Language of Stereotyping’Rai’s choice of characterising Bishnu to be as fallible as the next person is a good one. Her big-city confidence ensures she alienates the only male help her mother has around the house and is then too proud to admit her mistake. She unintentionally ends up providing the village elders with gossip fodder for calling the local police on migrant labourers after an incident of theft. She gets into petty squabbles at a hospital reception, when they insist on having the name for Junu’s husband, even though he’s not accompanying her to the appointment.Even during her brief courtship with local lad Gyan (Rahul Nawach Mukhia) – an architect by profession and a local politician’s son – Bishnu bristles due to his unspoken, constant disappointment in her refusal to conform. As Gyan and Bishnu spend time together, most people see her in new light, as the prospective daughter-in-law of an illustrious family; but she only sees the burden.Written by Rai and Kislay (director of Aise Hee, 2019), Shape of Momo is full of naturalistic dialogue as three generations of women navigate their beleaguered existence in a society where they constantly have to mind boundaries and be on guard. In a sparkling scene, Bishnu announces, “I won’t endure, I won’t tolerate.”Kislay’s directorial debut featured a similarly ‘abrasive’ protagonist, a middle-aged widow who refuses to act according to society’s expectations. After her husband’s passing, she finally discovers financial independence and agency – confounding her son and his family, who she lives with.In Rai’s film, I also found some of the mumblecore whimsy from Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird (2017). However, the only difference here is that Bishnu doesn’t romanticise her hometown anymore. She sees beneath the idyllic environment, which quashes the dreams and ambitions of women on a daily basis. As much as the idea of coming back home and building a homestay in a remote village in Sikkim feels like the ultimate city-dweller’s dream, something Bishnu has probably thought about while living in Delhi, the realisation that she will suffocate trying to live in the narrow worldview of her townsfolk, is inevitable.As the title suggests – the “shape” of a momo doesn’t necessarily dictate its flavour. But when shape is all that’s paid attention to, maybe it’s a futile effort to convince the world about its flavour. Tribeny Rai’s debut feature exudes enough authenticity to make the point that one often outgrows their home – but it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t like their parents anymore, or are “too independent” for their own good.In the end, Bishnu, with all her contradictions, simply refuses to shrink to fit into the home where she grew up.*Shape of Momo is playing in select theatres near you.